Gallic Books acquires Carlier's award-winning novel about a love of Proust

Clara Reads Proust, Stéphane Carlier’s eighth novel, will be published by Gallic Books, the first of the author’s works to be translated into English.

Editor Polly Mackintosh, who is also a translator and will be translating the work, acquired world English rights to the novel from Margot Miriel at French publisher Gallimard. The novel will be published by Gallic Books in spring 2023, supported by a targeted marketing campaign.

The multiple prize-winning novel was published in France last year. It tells the story of Clara, a 23-year-old hairdresser whose life is changed after she finds a copy of Swann’s Way and begins to read it. 

The synopsis reads: “Clara is a hairdresser at Cindy Coiffure, a sleepy French salon with an identity crisis. Her relationship is fizzling out. Her tanaholic boss Madame Habib worships Jacques Chirac and talks longingly of her days in Paris. The highlight of this week was when the dishy technician came to repair the display cabinet. And now Madame Lévy-Leroyer wants to go blonde. Clara can’t help but wonder if there’s more to life.

“Everything changes when a customer leaves behind the first volume of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. As Clara reads, she discovers a new world, leading her to strike up an unexpected friendship. And slowly but surely, she will work out who she wants to be.”

Clara Reads Proust is described as “a tender and witty coming-of-age story about the power of literature to inspire new beginnings, peppered with a cast of quirky characters and a unique heroine".

The book has won the Prix Albert Bichot 2022, the Prix du Cercle Littéraire Proustien 2022, Prix @ttitude 2022, Librairies Attitude; Prix Littéraire des Rotary Club de la Langue Française 2022 and Prix de l’Atelier 2023.

Mackintosh, an editor and a translator from French who has translated the work of Alain Ducasse, Antoine Laurain, Serge Joncour and early French feminist Marie-Louise Gagneur, said: “Clara Reads Proust is a complete delight. Readers will fall for its charming cast of characters and their unique foibles, while Clara’s coming-of-age story will resonate with anybody who has ever loved a book. We can’t wait to bring it to anglophone readers.”

Stéphane Carlier added: “I’m genuinely happy that Clara gets to cross the Channel! Thank you, Gallic, for allowing English-speaking readers to discover her life-changing story, a story about the irresistible power of words.”